Somebody wrote "growing old gifted" but I don't remember why I first read it so I can't recall who wrote it.  I found it again by googling "gifted + old age".  It mused on about how gifted elderly people can observe the end of life without letting their ego distort their reality.  It seems the writer is saying she still has no one to "let loose" with at age 87 since elderly are age-segregated and fellow elderly are trying to tune out reality.  
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/argrowold.pdf
Now I think, will I have inherited Alzheimer's from my family and still live "with my eyes wide open" in my last years?  I worry about the strangest things, so they say.  I'm not worrying about it, I just thought about it a little.  Glad I didn't say that one out loud.  "Hey, who is that actors name who plays that girl in that one movie?". Yeah, I should say something like that.

Originally Posted by 87 yr old & gifted
There’s no definition of where I am in life now. It’s beyond old—and I can’t write about it because I can’t define it. I’m saying goodbye to the last stage that’s definable. I have never felt this way before. I’m also feeling that there isn’t anybody who can identify with this. The other old people I know are either senile or too firmly rooted in the concrete! I’m living in a twilight world. There is a lack of definition. In younger years, you can get through these times by considering your future, but in old age, there is no more future to imagine. How can you live without the future? 


Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar